We had a fantastic vacation at Will's roommate's (Mom) cottage. Linda has a fantastic place in Shelby, MI right off Lake Michigan. It's a fantastic cottage that sleeps 12+ in the woods. The cottage is 10 minutes South of Silver Lake Sand Dunes, and about 20 minutes North of Michigan's Adventure Amusement Park. You can sit on the deck and not hear a sound other than crickets chirping and the wind blowing through the trees and at night you're remote enough that you can see more stars than you new existed.
We arrived on Friday afternoon along with our friends the Niemi's. They have three kids about the same age as our kids, one boy and two girls. The kids had a blast playing together wherever they were. Friday, Saturday and Sunday we hung out at the beaches during the day and in the evening went . The kids slept in until 9 each morning, which was great. We spent the mornings drinking coffee and hanging out, the days at the beach and the evenings watching the sunsets at the beach followed by a camp fire.
At some point, a dog wandered over to Linda's cottage who according to his tag was named Roy. You'd of thought the kids had never seen a dog before. They got the dog water and he followed them around as they hiked through the woods. The dog was there for maybe two hours tops, and we must have heard 30 times through the rest of vacation, "I miss Roy."
On Sunday, Mark and I took the boys over to the Silver Lake Dunes to bleed off some energy. The boys had been having these water-noodle sword fights the past few days and had been asking non-stop about when we were going to the dunes, so they could have a water-noodle fight on top of the dunes. They finally had their battle. We climbed to the top of the highest, steepest dune and ran 100+ yards straight down into the lake.
Backing up to Linda's cottage is this giant hill. Saturday evening, the boys and I climbed the hill and decided we'd navigate our way over to the Lake Michigan through the woods, using nothing but our Y chromosome. It was a hike, but we made it without getting lost... Kind of. We ended up coming out of the woods at the Lake, but not sure how to get back. We could have/should have cut through the yards to the lake, walked until we found our way back. Instead, we followed the road we didn't know all the way around, back into town and back to the cottage - about 4+ miles total. The boys slept well that night.
On Monday the Niemi's headed home and the five of us went to Michigan's Adventure Amusement Park in Muskegon. It's a fantastic park for the price. $24 admission gets you into both the water park and the amusement park and it takes about a day to hit them both. They've got a bunch of good roller coasters and a ton of rides that work for big and little kids. Nate and Madeline are both tall enough to ride all of the coasters there and they both love them. They've got a wicked wooden roller coaster called Shivering Timbers. I'm not sure if it still is, but at one point it was the longest wooden roller coaster around. In true wooden coaster style, it beats the crap out of you. Here's video of Maddie riding Shivering Timbers. Watch her expression as the ride progresses:
We had a beautiful day at the park, hitting the rides, spending about 4 hours in the water park, and then back to the coasters. We got home around 8, grilled out and then had a fire. We spent today at the beach and then came back and packed up and headed home. We stopped by to see my Mom and then got home around 9. It was a great vacation, but not quite long enough.
I almost hate to tell anyone about Linda's cottage because it's such a hidden treasure. She rents it out and I highly recommend it for a family vacation, or even a weekend getaway for couples. If you're interested, you can drop Linda a note here about availability. The place is perfect beautiful year round.
You can see the rest of the vacation pictures here in the Kurt Family Photo Album.
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